re: #40 recusancy

Bullets fired into the air maintain their lethal capability when they eventually fall back down.

busted / plausible / confirmed

In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured. To date, this is the only myth to receive all three ratings at the same time.

OK guys, I am a little shocked that I need to write this.

Energy is conserved. If you fire a bullet up into the air, and forget about air resistance, it comes down at the exact same speed that it started with.

However, velocity is a vector and speed is not velocity.

What matters to this question, is how much of the velocity was pointed at the target at time of impact. So say some fool fires a bullet straight up - or nearly straight up. The velocity is almost all in the vertical direction. So, if you are standing under a bullet when it comes down it is exactly like you had lain on your tummy and someone shot horizontally at your head. On the other hand, if you are vertical and the bullet is not coming down directly on top of you, it has very little horizontal velocity or momentum. It will graze.